Metro Pulse/Artbeat/Underground

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What:
Underground

Where:
Rodman Townsend Sr. Memorial Gallery (7th floor, the Candy Factory), 1060 World's Fair Park Drive

When:
Through Feb. 28

A1 LabArts members and friends go underground

by Heather Joyner

The unifying topic for A1 LabArts' current show was arrived at in the usual uncommon manner. Mignon Naegeli (once a cookbook illustrator in her native Switzerland and now the interdisciplinary art organization's interim PR person) acknowledges that "underground" can mean a lot of things. However, she tells me that it became A1 LabArts' exhibit theme in connection with food being served at the annual members' meeting. "I usually cook dinner for the meeting, and I decided to do 'underground food,'" she explains, "give me an idea and I'll cook it." Just short of concluding that the above is the wackiest notion ever, I realized its beauty—and what it says about the entity known as "A1."

Established by UT students in 1995, A1 is a community of approximately 30 member artists working in both conventional and "new genre" art forms. No longer consisting of students only, the group retains a lighthearted, experimental attitude regarding its various endeavors. Thus "underground" can allude to food and chewing—as well as eschewing that which is mainstream. As a theme for art, it can inspire pieces made from dirt or discarded wood or crushed metal. And it has.

The almost three dozen works currently displayed in the Candy Factory's Townsend Gallery reflect A1's diversity. In fact, relatively short notice that the show could take place may have prompted members to include art by numerous friends. What we end up with is an intriguing assortment of sculpture, ceramics, photography, painting, textile art, assemblages, film stills, and other pieces. We have the good, the bad, and the ugly—an aspect of A1's unjuried exhibits that I've come to truly appreciate. This inclusive approach, allowing amateur and professional artists alike to be recognized, prevents any one object from taking itself too seriously. And these days (despite a pervasive predilection for irony), that's unusual.

Photography in the Underground exhibit is generally good. Renée San�bria's "10 Seconds" is particularly striking. Showing a woman from slightly above, her arms sensuously crossed behind her head, the portrait reveals a tattooed arm, lower back, and a depiction of the Virgin Mary on the woman's neck. Printed as photo emulsion on panels of wood, it is reminiscent of religious icon paintings on similar surfaces. In this sense, it becomes an iconic treatment of an icon—either the traditional Virgin or the virginal young woman, or both. Brownish paint dripped from the top of the piece and splattered on it— referring to blood?—is an unnecessary, belabored-looking element, but the photograph is powerful nevertheless.

Dick Penner's black and white print titled "War" features a boulder hovering in a blackened sky. Despite the absurdity of the rock's superimposition on clouds, its insistence and indestructibility are frightening. Robert Harvey's "Cynthia's Lost Post Modern Masterpiece," a photograph of a found painting by Cynthia Markert, manages to be both Markert's art and Harvey's own image. Naegeli's "Strawplains Down Under" employs a sepia tone that complements the photograph's subterranean focus—a man furiously jackhammering into the earth. The composition is balanced, but like a film still, the shot seems part of a sequence. Because we don't know "the story" the single photo might be perplexing. Speaking of stills, Norman Magden's dozen images from his video titled "Sisters of Silence Go Bowling" make us want to see the taped performance itself.

Mixed media paintings by Donna Conliffe (one of the show's "guests"), Jean Hess, and Denise Stewart-Sanabria are all captivating. Conliffe and Hess are masters of exquisite surface detail that comes together to form an exciting whole, whereas Stewart-Sanabria is more subject-driven. Again, we find the Virgin Mary, this time in the latter artist's "Repression Victim #1." Her mouth stitched shut, a nude female with a pendant of the Virgin around her neck leans passively within the picture plane. Although Stewart-Sanabria's rendering of the figure and its message are a bit heavy-handed, the painting is nothing if not gutsy.

Three-dimensional pieces add spark to the show, especially one by another A1 guest, Lee Jines. His "The Duelist" is crafted from twisted found metal forming a bust of sorts that sits atop a wood pedestal. The use of materials is nothing new, but Jines' face is quite memorable. One of the head's eyes is pristine, yet the "socket" for the other (bloody) eye is jagged and disturbing. So, too, are realistic but crusty-looking yellowed teeth surrounded by what Jines labels as "fuzzy toy fuzz." A scraggly nose completes the piece's comi-tragical presence. Assuming an entirely different form is Alan and Anita Finch's "The Death of Liberty," resembling a small red coffin placed on the gallery floor. Glass protects the crude dirt shape of a person, its "body" outlined by coins and $5 bills. Arabic-printed paper airplanes are thrust into a patch of privet where a head would be. Extending from beneath the foliage is an American flag. Pointing toward our country's impending invasion of Iraq, the Finches are direct in a very clever way.

Another aspect of A1 exhibits that I've always enjoyed is their appearance in a variety of venues. With the organization's move this coming summer into more permanent digs (no pun intended) on Gay Street, nomadic events will no longer be the norm. I have no doubt, however, that the ever-flexible A1 will continue to present fun and challenging art. We are lucky to have them in our midst.